On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 01:53:58PM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote: > > > I was going to propose a patch against the current policy document, > > > but there is a little problem: > > > Since dpkg will not prevent upgrading of other packages while an > > > essential package is in an unconfigured state, all essential packages > > > must supply all of their core functionality even when unconfigured. If > > > the package cannot satisfy this requirement it must not be tagged as > > > essential, and any packages depending on this package must instead > > > have explicit dependency fields as appropriate.
> > Given that a /usr/bin/awk link is made available as part of the initial > > install, I don't think there's any way of it becoming unavailable even > > though alternatives are used. > Exactly, but still none of the awk packages will work when unconfigured > (before they are bootstrapped), as policy seems to forbid. I don't really see what relevance policy has to bootstrapping in that sense; I mean, dpkg is unpacked before libc6 (they're done alphabetically initially, iirc) which violates a pre-depends, eg. Even essential packages are allowed to assume /usr/bin/awk works before they're installed, that the mawk and gawk packages happen to assume that fact in order to ensure that /usr/bin/awk continues working while they're unpacked is no great problem. > > # dpkg --install bash_Y*.deb foo*.deb > > bash Y is unpacked over the top of bash X; /bin/sh is removed if present > > since it's no longer in the package > > foo's #!/bin/sh preinst script is run, it dies horribly, dpkg aborts > Indeed, but bash version Y (>X) which does not provide /bin/sh in the .deb > is, in some way, a step backwards as far as bootstrapping is concerned. It's no big deal either way. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``If you don't do it now, you'll be one year older when you do.''
